Medical Cannabis (Access) Bill

Debate between Mark Fletcher and Katherine Fletcher

Friday 10th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Katherine Fletcher]

Let me make a little progress. I am trying to defend science, but I am incredibly conscious that others want to speak and have other perspectives on the matter.

August bodies such as the British Paediatric Neurology Association, the General Medical Council, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the Royal College of Physicians have all issued guidance around the original change in the law, which was initially cautious. NICE has recently updated its guidance to state:

“There is no recommendation against the use of cannabis based medical products.”

However, it still does not address the issue of a positive evidence base for the safety and effectiveness of these drugs. How do we do that?

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

In response to some of the passions expressed, I want to say that my hon. Friend is making an incredible speech. Not only is it emotional, but it outlines the difficulties of ethics, decision making, science and research. I have listened for the past 30 minutes, captivated by the way in which she is presenting the matter to the House. On behalf of all hon. Members here today, may I say thank you?

[Katherine Fletcher]

I thank my hon. Friend. I reassure the House that it is not only a surname that we have in common.

I think we are getting somewhere. We need a scientific evidence base that we can prescribe to doctors or the system more broadly that will give them more confidence—or, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington suggests, effectively a bypass mechanism that says, “I know we haven’t got any evidence, but on this we’ll have to look at the very compelling but relatively small numbers.” There is an implication that we should just throw out what is working very well.

This is where the hon. Member might welcome what I am trying to get at—well, he might. The gold standard randomised controlled trial requires a very strongly controlled placebo. There are two cohorts of people who absolutely do not know whether they are on the placebo or the real thing, because there are a series of cognitive biases that can kick in if they think they are receiving a medicine and are not. I agree 100% with, and understand why, anybody whose child is currently taking medicinal cannabis and is stable and happy, would never put themselves in a position where they would have a one in x chance of receiving a placebo as opposed to the medicine. I spoke with Joanne Griffiths directly about that and I understand that.

However, during the covid pandemic the scientific establishment has changed trial design and its ways of doing things, so it has to be possible to find a placebo cohort of children with similar conditions who are not taking additional cannabis medicine. There are a number of reasons why people might choose to not use it. The UK is not an island. The other problem is that the numbers are fantastically low, so there is a relatively low pool of people to play with. However, the UK has shown itself to be a leader in global science. I think it would be possible to find, in other countries where they have not taken the progressive steps we have taken in the UK to legalise medicinal cannabis, a group of children with similar medical conditions and use them as the placebo. There is an opportunity for the scientific community to maintain the gold standard of a double-blind trial, but not necessarily put people in the position where they need to come across.

My call to Government would be to speed up the current observation trials and to engage with scientific leadership—remember, it is this Government who are putting extra billions into research and development because we are a science superpower—on a more creative RCT trial, looking for the placebo that proves or disproves it over a series of numbers on a global scale.

I will draw my remarks to a close. It is in the pincer between medical ethics and standards of evidence where, tragically, young men like Ben sit, and we see the distress. There are potential solutions. I see the sense of measures in the Bill, but they come back too much to the idea that by voting for the Bill as an MP and as an unqualified individual, I will be telling a medical professional what to do. That is how I read the Bill.